Source: BBC Radio 4 PM
URL: N/A
Date: 15/12/2018
Event: Lord Deben: "Britain is leading but we're going to have to be very much tougher"
Credit: BBC Radio 4
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Caroline Quinn: Nobody said that saving the planet would be easy.
Sir David Attenborough: Right now, we’re facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years – climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.
Caroline Quinn: A warning from David Attenborough, who was speaking at the start of the UN climate change conference in Poland almost two weeks ago. While many here have been focussed on the agonies of Brexit negotiations, officials trying to get the world to agree on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions have been having an even tougher time of it. They talked through the night and extended their deadline, as they tried to finalise a deal. So, if they all agree on the threat, why is reaching a consensus on the next steps to limit global warming so tough? Ovais Sarmad, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:
Ovais Sarmad: We've been up all night and working on various texts and finding that balance, which is a challenge. The balance between all aspects of the Paris Agreement Rulebook that satisfies all countries - which is, as you can imagine, a big challenge.
Caroline Quinn: Well, I'm joined now by John Gummer, now Lord Deben, who was John Major's Environment Secretary. He chairs the independent Committee on Climate Change, which advises the government here. Thank you for joining us - what are these talks hoping to achieve and why is it proving so hard to reach that deal?
Lord Deben: Well, they have achieved two things, as long as that's carried through at the end of the plenary. One is that they've agreed on a much tougher goal for financing the changes, particularly in poor countries, by 2025 - that wasn't expected, and that is a very cheering part. And a rather complex bit they've achieved, which is how you actually count the greenhouse gas emissions. And on that, the developing countries have accepted that they're going to have to measure very accurately, so that everybody recognises each other's figures. And that is another breakthrough of considerable importance, and shows how complicated this whole matter is. So it's really that we're trying to put really detailed figures on the general agreements that the whole world made, so remarkably, in Paris.
Caroline Quinn: And one of the trickiest areas seems to be this question of poorer nations receiving support from richer nations for the damage caused by global warming. Is that a debate, do you think, that will continue to dominate this?
Lord Deben: Well, yes because there are two bits to it. One is: we've obviously caused most of the problem, and indeed Britain has played a very big part in it, because we led the Industrial Revolution. So we're going to have to pay for the changes in developing countries, which will enable them to grow without damaging the climate even further. But there's this other bit, which is that some countries are being particularly damaged by climate change, like these little islands in the Pacific, which are actually going to be overwhelmed and are having to buy land elsewhere for their population. And they're asking not just for help in order to change their own systems to fight climate change, but they're asking for compensation. And of course, the richer nations, although they're sympathetic to that, realise that once you started doing that, where would that end? So there is a very complex issue which has to be hammered out and will go on being hammered out.
Caroline Quinn: And what about major developing economies, such as India and Brazil - will they listen to those who are pushing for stronger action? Because it is all very well for already industrialised nations to say to developing countries "You must change tack" but a lot of people will hear that as the West trying to say "Do as we say, not as we do".
Lord Deben: Well, we might have worried about that before, but if you look at China, for example, it's really leading the world now in the degree to which it is fighting climate change. India has committed itself to very considerable changes. It's a bit difficult to see what's happening in Brazil at the moment, because of the change of government, and that's a great sadness. And there are some other countries that really need to pull their socks up - the Australians are particularly bad, and I must say for most of us a change of government in Australia, so that they begin to play a part in this operation, would be a very great help.
Caroline Quinn: And you advise the British government on this - what will we, as the UK, have to do to help combat global climate change?
Lord Deben: Well, we have a good system - we are already committed to cutting our emissions by 80% by the year 2050. The government has now asked us in the Climate Change Committee to advise them how we reach the targets, which we agreed to in Paris. And that means reaching towards net zero. And that's what we will be recommending, some time early next year. So altogether I think Britain is leading but we're going to have to be very much tougher, and the government is going to have to move faster if it's going to keep on track for meeting our commitments.
Caroline Quinn: Lord Deben, thank you.